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Googlicious

The Essential Phone is all screen and no dents

Andy Rubin is the father of Android and the Essential Phone could be his next great device.

4:09 / May 31, 2017

Transcript

[MUSIC]
[SOUND]
Googlicious.
What's happening, Brain Tong here and welcome to Googlicious for all the Google you could think of.
Let's get to it.
And is there enough room for another android phone on the market?
Well you ask Andy Rubin, the creator of Android.
Which just happens to run on over 2 billion devices.
He left Google to build that phone, and his answer is the Essential Phone.
Just try saying that out loud, it sounds classy.
The Essential Phone.
Now, Essential Products is the name of the company, and at the Code Conference, Rubin unveiled what they simply call, The Phone, for the first time.
It's a near Besel free design, running stock Android.
Made from a blend of titanium and ceramic materials.
So it can survive a drop test without a major dent or blemish.
Directly calling out Samsung and Apple.
Now it's running the Snapdragon 835 with four gigs of RAM And 128 gigs of storage with a rare fingerprint sensor and USBC connection.
And it's also compatible with all carriers.
Now it's unique design wraps the screen around the front facing camera.
You can see that.
And if you're looking at the future.
This phone also does not have a headphone jack.
Now Reuben also said there is a yet to be announced or demonstrated assistant that will run on the phone.
And it will also be compatible with the world's smallest 360 degree camera, that's an accessory option.
Now, this might be the most intriguing phone of the year because of the creators, especially coming from Reuben.
Look, he's Android's daddy who also was the CEO at Danger when they created one of my favorite phones of all time, The sidekick.
That was a smartphone before they were actually called smartphones.
Ruben just gets it and we will see how the consumers respond.
The phone is available now for preorder for 699.
Now a central product also announced their own Amazon Echo and Google Home competitor called the Essential Home.
It is there entry in to the home assistant With a streamline design that visually outdoes the Echo or the Google home, with a circular screen that can be activated by touch, voice, or even glance.
It does what you expect, you can control music, ask general questions, set timers, and control lights.
But Essential claims they will do it better.
Now at the code conference, Ruben said Essentials Home will be able to run Alexa, the Google Assistant, and Siri.
Now that's surprising.
They wanted to be a device that anyone on any platform could use, but again we'll have to see if it actually gets those deals made.
It runs what they call the ambient OS and most of the processing will happen locally on the device.
And on the Cloud prioritizing your privacy compared to other smart speakers on the market.
Now all they have right now is these renders with cool animations.
There is no specks, no pricing, no delivery date [UNKNOWN] Says it will ship sometime in the summer.
Now Essential is a company worth watching it We'll see how and if they can really break people out of their ecosystem shackle, so we'll keep locked in on that.
[SOUND] All right, alphabet, the artist formerly known as Google, announced their new nest IQ security camera.
Think of it as an upgrade to the current $200 nest cam [INAUDIBLE] thanks to its higher video quality, built in speakers, but really it's the brains inside of it, it's just better Now, on the outside, it may not look like anything significant, but its eight megapixel sensor records 4K video with HDR, to capture significantly better-looking videos.
And with its facial recognition, zooming into enhance will actually look Good.
There's a feature called persons alert.
It sends a notification to you when a person is in the field of view and not a pet.
Unless your dog walks on two feet.
[SOUND] Come on, that's just cute.
And super site Is a picture in picture view tracking shot of a person in view.
Plus, if you want to get creepy or be that parent you can talk to your kids clearly with its improved speakers.
See that's no fun.
Nest also offers more features if you subscribe to their Nest Aware service.
Other smart cameras offer facial recognition that even around 60 bucks.
The new Nest Cam IQ is 299, but it looks like the smartest home camera today.
We'll just have to see if it's really worth that price.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week, with three big products dropping.
You can email me at googlicious@cnet.com Or Tweet me at Brian Tong.
Thanks so much for watching, we'll catch y'all next time for some more of that Googlicious.
[MUSIC]

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